Method and apparatus for selective internal radiation therapy planning and implementation

A system for planning and implementing a selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT), comprising:

• a tomographic imaging modality;
• a control unit configured to operate said tomographic imaging modality to generate a large volume dataset of a patient who is to undergo SIRT, said large volume dataset encompassing the entire liver of the patient, said liver having a tumor therein fed with blood by feeder vessels emanating from a main branch;
• a processor supplied with said large volume dataset and configured to automatically segment the liver from surrounding tissue in said large volume dataset by executing a computerize segmentation algorithm, and automatically calculate the volume of the liver from the segmented liver;
• a contrast agent injector;
• said control unit being configured to operate said tomographic imaging modality and said contrast agent injector to inject contrast agent into said main branch for said feeder vessels and to acquire a contrast-enhanced tomographic volume dataset from the patient comprising a contrast-enhanced tumor and contrast-enhanced feeder vessels that supply blood to said contrast-enhanced tumor;
• said processor being configured to automatically segment said contrast-enhanced tumor and said contrast-enhanced feeder vessels from surrounding tissue in said contrast-enhanced volume dataset by executing a computerize segmentation algorithm;
• said processor being configured to automatically calculate the volume of the tumor from the segmented contrast-enhanced tumor;
• said processor also being supplied with an input representing a lung shunt percentage for said patient and an input representing the body surface area (BSA) of the patient, and said processor being configured to automatically calculate an amount of therapeutic agent for use in said SIRT for treating said tumor, from the BSA, the lung shunt percentage, the liver volume, and the tumor volume;
• a fluoroscopic imaging modality configured to obtain a live fluoroscopic image of the liver of the patient during SIRT and to overlay the segmented contrast-enhanced liver and the segmented contrast-enhanced feeder vessels on said live fluoroscopic image, to obtain an overlay image;
• a catheter that is positioned dependent on said overlay image, with respect to at least one of said feeder vessels;
• and
• said catheter being connected to a source of said therapeutic agent and being operated to administer the calculated amount of said therapeutic agent during SIRT.